Run your crane services end to end
A crane company lives on the phone: someone calls, you have to give a price right away, send the right machine, prove how long it was on site, and then chase the payment. The Services module is that whole operation on one screen: the Table shows every job with its folio, client, machine and status; Dispatch shows the day crane by crane; and each job opens its record with the real timestamps, the departure checklist, the ticket and its collection. The price isn't made up: it comes from the Rate card — per hour, per lift or per kilometer, with automatic night and Sunday surcharges — and the client gets a link to see their quote or follow their lift without an account, with your logo.
- Two views: Table to operate (folio, client, machine, total, status) and Dispatch to see the whole day crane by crane.
- The price comes from the Rate card: per hour, per lift or per kilometer with the distance calculated to the real address; night (22:00–6:00) and Sunday add their surcharge automatically.
- The operation is stamped with real times: left the yard, arrived on site and started the lift — the time between arrival and start is waiting time chargeable to the client, defensible on the invoice.
- The ticket closes the job with the real hours — which flow into billing with the rate card's minimum and overtime — and the name of whoever received it; if there was billable waiting time, it goes in as its own line, not as a surprise charge.
- The client follows their lift by link, without an account and with your brand; the quote travels by link too.
- Collections with invoice, credit days and an overdue traffic light per client.
- Every job knows its cost (diesel, operator, tolls) and its margin — you know which lifts make money and which don't.
- 1
Enter the job when the phone rings
In /servicios tap "New job": client, machine (with its photo), origin, destination with a real address, and date/time. The Rate card proposes the price for the pricing mode — per hour, per lift or per kilometer with the distance calculated — and if the lift falls at night or on a Sunday, the surcharge turns on by itself and you see it before confirming.
- 2
Send the quote by link
The job starts as a quote with a folio and a client from your CRM (if the client is new, they are added in the same step). Once sent, its validity period starts; share it by WhatsApp or email: the client sees it with your logo, the line items broken down and the total with VAT, and accepts it from their phone without creating an account. Once accepted, its prices are locked; an expired quote can no longer be accepted.
- 3
Dispatch and stamp the real hours
If the quote was accepted without a unit or operator, the dispatcher assigns them (or swaps them) from the job without touching the accepted price, and reschedules it if needed. Dispatch shows any day by unit or by operator, with what still needs assigning set apart. On the day of the lift, the operator taps from their phone: left the yard (if something on the departure checklist is missing, the app says so first), arrived on site, started the lift. Those stamps are the difference between arguing and getting paid: what happens between arriving and starting is waiting time chargeable to the client, with a signed time. Dispatch also shows the day's free cranes in gray: from a free crane's row you assign it to the job that needs it; and before leaving base the app warns if the dispatch checklist was never reviewed.
- 4
Close with the signed ticket
When the job is done, enter the real hours (per resource, if it took several; the billed hours are the main unit's) and who received it, and print the ticket for signature: it comes out with the real hours, not the quoted ones. The ticket proposes the quoted hours and, one tap away, the ones measured since the start stamp. If there was billable waiting time, it is added as its own line ("Chargeable waiting — 3 h × rate") so the client sees it explained, not as a surprise. Waiting time is billed only past your company's grace period (set it in Rate card). The closing price —minimum, overtime and waiting— is calculated by Matterial when the ticket closes: a Crane operator sees on the ticket the hours to be billed, without amounts. Once invoiced, the signed ticket can be reprinted as is.
- 5
Invoice and chase the payment
In Collections you turn the ticket into an invoice with its credit days. The traffic light shows what is about to fall due and what is already overdue, per client — the collections call comes from there, not from memory. Tap the collected amount of a folio to see its payments and remove a wrong one; and if the payment is logged on the client's record, apply it to the folio so its balance goes down.
Frequently asked questions
How are my jobs numbered?
With your company's own series: in Rate card → Folio series you choose the prefix (by default, your name's initials) and folios go in order; a deleted one is never reused. Your client sees it on their link, the quote and the ticket.
Does the operator see prices?
No. Invite your people with the "Crane operator" role: they see their jobs, stamp departure, arrival and start, and close the ticket, without rates, totals or margins (their ticket prints without amounts). An operator doesn't take a user seat on your plan: even on Free with all your users taken, you can invite them. The "Dispatcher" role quotes and schedules with prices, without the owner's dashboard, and that one does take a user.
How much is the client charged for the operator?
Whatever your Rate card says for crew (a Crew-type rate, for example "Operator"); without one, the operator is included in the crane. Never their day rate: the day rate is your cost and only feeds the job's margin.
Where does a job's price come from?
From your company's Rate card: you define rates by machine type and pricing mode (per hour, per lift, per kilometer). When you enter the job, the rate resolves by itself with the distance to the destination address, and the night (22:00–6:00) and Sunday surcharges are applied automatically. A rate with no unit anchored covers the units with that name or with that category in Equipment, and the Rate card tells you which ones it covers. You can always adjust the price by hand before sending the quote.
What is chargeable waiting time and why does it matter?
It is the time between the crane ARRIVING on site and the lift STARTING — usually because the work front wasn't ready. Since all three moments are time-stamped, that waiting can be billed with evidence: it goes on the ticket as its own line, with its hours and its rate, and the client sees it broken down in their link. A few minutes are not waiting: in Rate card → Waiting-time grace period you choose how many are not billed (15 by default); past the grace period the whole wait is billed, in quarter hours rounded down.
Does the client need an account to see their quote or their lift?
No. Both the quote and the lift tracking travel by a public link with your brand. The client opens it, sees it and — for the quote — accepts it from their phone.
Can I tell whether a lift made me money?
Yes. Every job records its costs (diesel, operator, tolls, travel expenses — some are calculated automatically from the cost rates you set up) and compares them with what was invoiced: the margin per job and per client comes from there.
Does this replace the Equipment module?
They complement each other: Equipment is the asset's record (hour meter, maintenance, cost per hour); Services is the commercial operation of putting it to work with an operator. The same machine lives in both — the job takes its photo and its availability from the record.